


Endangered Species

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [6]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:12:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something big and nasty in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stephen glanced at his watch.

Fifteen minutes had passed since Lyle dispatched two of his men out into the night.

Without any instructions needing to be given, the members of Ryan’s team had all stopped drinking. They were simply watching and waiting. Quiet, hard-eyed and very, very dangerous.

Lyle lounged in the doorway of the hotel, looking out past the floodlit area into the darkness of the trees. The only sign of movement was his hands, as he rubbed fingers against thumbs, trying to drive out the pricking feeling.

“Are his thumbs often wrong?” asked Stephen, quietly.

“No,” said Ryan.

Stephen sighed. “So when the shit hits the fan, can I borrow something bigger than the Browning?”

“You can have a fucking rocket launcher if you know how to use it.”

“I’d prefer one of your L96s,” said Ryan’s lover, with a hopeful grin.

Which would be a splendid way to annoy Lester if he ever found out. “What about your dart gun?”

“If I was going to need that, I doubt Lyle would be acting like he’s got a bad dose of eczema.”

He was right, and for that reason the Special Forces leader would give Hart the gun he wanted. Ryan had seen him shoot and he had no doubt that his blue-eyed lover could make good use of the bolt action sniper’s rifle.

It never hurt to have someone on the team who was could handle distance work. Personally, Ryan preferred something which hit harder and was faster for close range work, which was invariably where the action ended up, in his experience, but it was always good to keep your back-up options open.

Lester would no doubt whinge about the issue of weapons to civilians, but Lester was probably sitting on his elegant butt, somewhere comfortable and safe, probably with a gin and tonic in his hand. He certainly wasn’t stuck in an isolated hotel, surrounded by dense forest on all sides, at least three miles from the nearest village, with an unknown threat lurking in the shadows. With big teeth. The sodding things always had big teeth. Or claws. Or something equally nasty like a sting. Ryan was really starting to go off wildlife. Especially wildlife from different eras. Without a doubt, the preferable way to view the damn things was through gun sights.

A crackle from Lyle’s radio-headset broke the silence. The lieutenant listened intently, then said three words only, “Get back here.”

There was nothing casual about Lyle now. He thumbed a button on the radio control and then spoke quickly and clearly, obviously talking to the two members of his team patrolling the perimeter, “Ditzy? Phil? Watch yourselves. Vermin on the loose. If it looks more threatening than a hamster, shoot to kill.”

Ryan said calmly, “Leave cancelled, lads. Get kitted up.”

Lyle walked back into the bar, his expression grim. “I doubt Mary’s kitchen help will be turning up. My lot found a Peugeot van on the track, 2 klicks down. Something had taken the roof off.”

“Something big with teeth?”

“Or something small with a tin opener, which seems unlikely, so I’m guessing teeth were involved. And probably claws.”

“Blood?”

“Oh yes, lots of it. And a pair of legs left behind in the driver’s seat. Probably got stuck underneath the steering wheel. The torso seems to have been bitten through at the waist.”

“Cleanly?” asked Stephen, trying hard to preserve the same air of detachment as the two soldiers.

“No, messily, by the sound of it, but they can give you a better description when they get back.”

Ryan looked at Stephen and raised an eyebrow.

The younger man shrugged. “It sounds more like one big bite than lots of smaller ones, but I don’t have Connor’s encyclopaedic memory for the bloody things. Do you want me to track it?”

“It’ll probably come to that, but I’d rather talk to the lads first. Lyle, get Mary and her family together. I need to know how many civilians we’ve got to deal with. And get one of my lot to sort some kit for Dr Hart. He wants an L96.” The grey eyes fixed on Stephen were hard and businesslike, the relaxed good humour gone. “Come on, time to get changed.”

They took the stairs at a run. Within minutes, Ryan was back in his black military gear, checking the various pockets of his tac vest methodically. Stephen pulled on a long-sleeved black tee shirt, replaced trainers with boots and grabbed the dart-rifle from under the bed.

“I thought you wanted one of ours?”

“I do, but another gun won’t go amiss. They live in the middle of nowhere so it’s a fair bet Mary’s husband will shoot, and this has got a better range than a shotgun. It might come in handy for something.”

“Aren’t you going to argue with a shoot to kill policy?” asked Ryan, his voice holding only mild interest, without challenge.

Stephen stepped up close and kissed his lover hard on the mouth. “No, I’m fucking well not. Anything capable of taking the top off a van and ripping someone in half is not something we can afford to try and take alive.”

Ryan’s smile was as cold as a winter’s frost. “Welcome to our world, Hart.” His hand snaked round the back of Stephen’s neck and he pulled him into another kiss, tongue probing roughly, forcing teeth apart, mouths then working together so hard that both men forgot to breathe. Ryan broke off the kiss and stared for a moment into Stephen’s long lashed blue eyes. “Don’t get yourself killed before I’ve had a chance to fuck you properly.”

Stephen smiled, but his expression was bleak. “I’ll do my best.” He brushed his lips across Ryan’s, then tracked down towards his neck, enjoying the rasp of the stubble against his own. He buried one final kiss on the sensitive spot in the hollow where neck and shoulder meet and breathed, “Take care, Ryan.”

And then they were heading back downstairs, Stephen trying to force the adrenaline rush under control. It was going to be a long night, he couldn’t afford to start living off his nerves this soon.

Mary Mitchell and her husband Jim were in the hallway with Lyle, the man’s arm protectively round his wife’s shoulders.

“There are three children in the house, sir,” said the lieutenant. “Seventeen, fourteen and ten.”

“And a pack of dogs running wild in the woods?” Jim Mitchell tightened his grip on his wife. “Pull the other one, Captain Ryan, it’s got bells on.”

Before the Special Forces leader had the chance to reply, Mary said quietly, “We’ve lived here for four years. We know strange things go on in the Forest. We were warned when we bought this place, but we didn’t listen. So what’s out there now?”

Warned? What the hell was the woman talking about? Curiously warred with immediate danger and curiosity lost. There’d be time for questions later, if they survived.

“Does your kitchen help’s boyfriend drive a white van?” asked Ryan.

Mary Mitchell nodded. “Are they all right?”

“Unlikely,” said Ryan, quietly. “Something took the top off the van. One person is definitely dead.”

Right on cue, Lyle’s two men came in through the doors at a run, weapons held ready.

“Report,” demanded their lieutenant, recognising that Ryan was not going to try and cover this one up. The Witch King could deal with the aftermath. That was what he was paid for.

“One dead, sir. Male. Passenger missing. Something came out of the woods, the van driver swerved to miss it. Right front wheel went into the ditch at the side of the track. He tried to reverse backwards. Something stomped on the bonnet, then ripped the roof off. Peeled it back like the top on a tin of sodding sardines.” The soldier swallowed, glancing hesitantly at Mary and Jim Mitchell. Ryan nodded to him to continue. “Whatever it was bit the driver in half. There’s no sign of the upper torso. The blood trail goes west across the track and back into the trees.”

“What about the passenger?”

The soldier shrugged. “No sign, sir, but we saw blood and fibres on that side of the van, something had been dragged out that way.”

“Alive?”

“We didn’t find any bits left behind on that side, sir.”

“Then we go looking.” Ryan turned to Jim Mitchell. “If you’ve got a shotgun, get it ready. If you need something longer range, use the dart gun, then blast whatever you hit when it’s down, if you can. But for preference, stay inside and stay out of trouble.”

The man nodded and held his hand out for the rifle. Stephen handed it to him, together with the dart pouch. One of Ryan’s men came in carrying the sniper’s rifle he’d asked for and a long ammunition belt. It was a fair trade. Stephen checked the action and gave a slight nod. He was also carrying the Browning pistol but he still felt vaguely underdressed in comparison to the fire-power the Special Forces soldiers were packing.

Ryan handed him a the radio. “Keep that on. Lyle, I want two of your lot here to keep an eye on the house. Mary, is there any chance anyone else from the village will come up here?”

Mary Mitchell shook her head. It crossed Stephen’s mind that neither her nor her husband had mentioned phoning the police, but then with the soldiers carrying enough weaponry to start a minor war, any representatives from the local constabulary would be pretty redundant.

They headed off into the night. Four of the group, wearing infra-red night goggles, kept to the edge of the track, staring hard into the trees, rifles held ready. Stephen chambered a round into the L96, and without needing to be told, kept in the middle of the group. He knew what Ryan felt about civilians on field ops. The captain preferred those in his care to be obedient. That way he was less likely to lose his own men looking after strays. It was a view Stephen had come to respect.

Moonlight filtered down onto the stones of the track, turning puddles to mirrored glass. The road was rutted and muddy. Stephen stopped occasionally, looking for tracks but found nothing. When they came to the car, it was exactly the way Lyle’s man had described, half in the ditch, the bonnet crumpled. Stamped almost flat. The roof had been ripped off backwards, torn and twisted.

Ryan and Lyle approached the mangled wreckage and looked inside, shining a flashlight around the interior. The grim look on both men’s faces told Stephen that what was left of the driver wasn’t a pretty sight, but he was meant to be the monster expert, so he guessed the next bit wasn’t optional. He walked steadily up to the passenger door. The window had been shattered and his boots crunched on the glass. There were blood streaks on the white paintwork and scraps of what looked like a yellow sweater caught on sharp metal fragments on what was left of the door.

The interior was awash with blood, so much so that it was difficult to recognise the mangled remains of a human being. Sickness rose in his throat and he swallowed hard. He was damned if he was going to throw up in front of Ryan two days running.

He stepped back from the van and looked around at the roadway. Even the most optically challenged boy scout couldn’t fail to notice the trampled section of undergrowth leading off to the north side of the track. Stephen found what he was looking for almost immediately, helped by the soft earth bank leading down to the forest floor. He cast the torch beam around a few metres either side of the disturbed ground. His heart sunk even further. This really wasn’t turning into a good night.

Ryan watched his lover kneeling by the side of the road and knew Hart had found something. He walked over and looked down. “Shit.”

Stephen looked up, the moonlight turning his skin to alabaster. “Well, this blows the something small with a tin opener theory.” His face was set in a hard mask, all emotions, including fear, buried deep and locked down. “We won’t find the girl alive, Ryan.”

“How can you be sure? Its jaws were occupied with the top half of her boyfriend, remember.”

Stephen shook his head. The movement was enough to disturb the fragile hold he had on his stomach. He heaved and deposited its contents into the ditch. Ryan reached down and gave his shoulder a quick squeeze. Hart wasn’t the only one who had been rattled by the sight of the bloody remains in the van. He’d just heard one of his own lads retching in the darkness on the other side of the track. And this was an occasion when no-one would take the piss. That had been a bad sight. Even by their standards.

Stephen straightened up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and met the captain’s eyes without embarrassment. “There were two of them, Ryan. Either that or the fucking thing had two left feet.” He shone the torch beam into the trees, picking out broken branches well above head height. It was wasn’t going to be difficult to track, not even through the blackness of the forest. But like yesterday, there wasn’t going to be a happy ending. He realised he didn’t even know the missing girl’s name.

“What now?” asked Lyle, appearing at Stephen’s side like a wraith.

“Dr Hart finds it and we kill it,” said Ryan. Silver moonlight glinted into flint-hard eyes the colour of cold steel and reminded Stephen just how dangerous the Special Forces leader was. And he was glad of it. They would need all Ryan’s skills, and those of his men, if they were to stand any chance of taking down the creatures they were going to hunt.

“Do you know what it is?” the brown haired lieutenant asked, staring hard at a footprint that seemed depressingly close to a metre in length. He didn’t know why he bothered to ask the question really. He already knew the salient facts: it was big, it ate meat and it could take vans apart. And it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone in their right mind would want to meet on a dark night.

“It’s big and it’s a killer, that much is obvious” said Stephen. “It will rely on its sense of smell to hunt, so it’s as dangerous in the dark as it is during the day. It can bite a man in half, we’ve seen the evidence of that. As for species,” he shrugged. “I’ve told you before, I’m not Connor. I can think of a few possibilities, but knowing its Latin name before we kill it won’t necessarily help. Just make sure your men know to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.”

“What’ll bring it down best?” queried Lyle. “Head or body shots?”

“If you can, go for a head shot. Its rib cage can probably take a lot of damage before you hit anything vital.”

Lyle nodded and went off to brief the men. Minutes later, they were heading into the blackness of the trees. The conifers were planted in straight rows here, a commodity to be harvested, rather than a natural woodland. And these trees were tall, almost ready for cropping, which made it relatively easy for them to move even under the lowest branches.

That wasn’t the case for their quarry. Branches above head height were snapped and broken, some hanging loose, some littering the ground. The tracks were easy to follow, pressed deep into the soft, thick carpet of pine needles. About thirty metres off the track, Stephen saw a darker patch on the forest floor. Blood, and a slimy pile of what proved on closer inspection to be entrails. It looked horribly like the creature had stood there for a moment and shaken its head, with what was left of the body still in its jaws.

From the size and shape of the tracks he was now almost certain he knew what they were following. What he didn’t know was what the hell they were doing here, on the wrong side of the Atlantic Ocean. Cutter was not going to like this. It went against everything they had observed so far about the Anomalies. All the previous ones had appeared to open a gateway to the same place, in a different time. Or so they had thought.

At a signal from Lyle the team came to a halt and immediately took up defensive positions around Ryan and Stephen.

“There are at least two of them,” said Ryan, speaking into his radio headset, in response to a question. “They’re big and they’re nasty. Take ‘em down with head-shots if you can. One might be carrying the girl. If she looks in one piece, try and see if she’s alive before shooting.” He glanced over at Lyle. “Ditzy heard something breaking branches. Incoming towards the hotel, he thinks.”

Lyle nodded, his expression grim. “That’d be right from the direction they’re taking.” He shot a questioning glance at Stephen. “Why? Why not just grab their grub and scarper back somewhere warmer and nicer than a wet forest?”

“Small brains,” said Stephen. “Either that or they’re following a scent trail from earlier, left behind by your patrols.”

“Move it!” ordered Ryan.


	2. Chapter 2

Two minutes later, they heard the first shots. The soldiers redoubled their pace, hampered now by a section of younger trees and some deep drainage ditches. It wasn’t long before they heard the first yell, followed by more gunfire. Trying to stay within the swathe cut by the creatures, the Special Forces team started to make faster progress than Stephen could, for all his fitness, but in response to an earlier order from Ryan, one of the guys stayed with him.

Without warning, a massive shape crashed through the trees, no more than three metres away. The soldier in front of him whirled round, bringing up his gun in one fluid movement, searching for a target. It wasn’t hard to find. A huge shape, blacker than the surrounding night charged at them, impossibly fast, making the sort of noise normally only heard in certain types of nightmare, usually fuelled by far too much alcohol.

A burst of semi-automatic fire did nothing to slow the beast down. Trees splintered like plywood. Stephen threw himself to one side, his shoulder hitting a tree trunk with a painful crack. He held onto the rifle, recovering fast, cocking the bolt with the ease of long practice. It was probably the first time he’d ever fired a sniper’s rifle from the hip, but this wasn’t the time or the place for finesse.

A massive tail swung round as the creature turned towards the new threat. Stephen jumped out of its way, grabbing for another bullet, wishing he’d asked for something other than a single shot weapon.

The roar of more automatic fire split the night, the muzzle flash temporarily blinding both Stephen and their attacker. It turned, blundering wildly, hit by multiple bullets, which had probably done little more that sting it, but the light and the sharp smell of cordite confused its senses and it turned away from the stinging nuisance, away from what had until a moment ago been its prey, seeking easier pickings.

“What the fuck is it?” breathed the soldier.

“Probably the world’s biggest ever predator,” said Stephen, something approaching awe in his voice. Another burst of fire came from somewhere to their left and they set off again at a run.

Stephen’s radio cracked as he ran. He heard Ryan’s voice, distorted by static, “Hart, the woods are swarming with the fuckers! Get to the house, try and pick some of them off if they come across the front. They don’t seem to like the lights too much.”

Stephen glanced at his Special Forces escort and checked he’d also heard Ryan’s instruction. The man nodded and gestured with his gun barrel for them to move off. From all around, they heard the sounds of what closely resembled a pitched battle tearing through the night. They ran, hunched over, staying low, hopefully staying out of the way of the bullets, weaving through the undergrowth, moving closer to the glow of the lights surrounding the hotel.

They hesitated at the edge of the trees, getting their bearings, hearing the snap of branches and the groan of the trees themselves, pushed over by creatures that the thin pines should never have had to coexist with. By creatures that homo sapiens sapiens should never have had to coexist with.

Humans were not designed to go up against Tyrannosaurus rex, no matter what movie producers thought. It might make good cinema, but it was a crap way of prolonging your life expectancy. The creatures could run at something close to forty miles per hour, they had jaws that could bite a man in half with no discernible effort and a tail that could deliver a swipe that would send even the biggest, heaviest person flying, bones broken.

The lawn fronting the hotel and the drive was still floodlit, the lamps casting a hazy yellow glow over a wide area. Stephen could see at least three tyrannosaurs prowling the edge of the trees. What the hell was going on? He’d never read anything which indicated that the sodding things hunted in packs. For a long moment, silence fell, then a roar which would have stopped a bull elephant in its tracks echoed into the night and others answered it.

A burst of gunfire came from their left, and without waiting for instruction, Stephen ran, hoping the soldier had his back. The dash across the grass seemed interminable, he was running towards the lights set into the shrubbery by the main doors, his night vision torn apart by the brightness. Then something moved in front of him, rearing up like a massively over-sized horse on its hind legs, but infinitely more threatening.

He veered to the right, thumbed back the bolt on the L96, and fired again from the hip. Either the muzzle flash or the bullet caused the beast to jerk backwards, Stephen wasn’t sure which. He hoped it was the bullet. He carried on running, but this time past the main door to the hotel. He couldn’t risk leaving a scent trail directly inside. There were kids in the hotel and the sodding thing was just too close. He had to lead it away. But it was bigger than him and faster than him and it was also as mad as hell.. Oh shit.

The sound of gunfire on all sides tore at Stephen’s senses, destroying his ability to think or plan. All he could do was react, throwing himself one way, then the other, avoiding snapping jaws and wildly swinging tail. He turned, rolling and firing at the same time, the report of the rifle ripping into his brain, tearing rational thought into even smaller pieces. How the hell Ryan’s guys could use their submachine guns and still think straight, he’d never know.

The 7.62 mm bullet tore through the tyrannosaur’s brain, taking a sizeable section of skull with it. And the fucking thing was still lumbering towards him, like something out of a Hammer Horror film, only here, the script writers weren’t necessarily on his side. He grabbed for a bullet ……and dropped it.

Another burst of gunfire sounded, very close. The already ruined skull jerked again and the giant predator started to topple sideways. Relief hit Stephen hard. He fumbled again for a bullet, cursing his clumsiness. This was no time for an attack of nerves. Actually it was, said the still sane part of his brain. Things the size of a house were trying to eat him. Flight was infinitely more sensible choice than fight when faced with these monsters. So why the hell wasn’t he running?

The Special Forces soldier who’d saved his life and whose name he still didn’t know, skidded to a halt next to him, and just for good measure pumped another clip of ammunition into the twitching corpse.

Slamming a replacement clip into the machine pistol, the man remarked, “I never did like Jurassic Park.”

“These things are Cretaceous.”

“Sodding movie makers. Can’t believe anything you see on the screen these days.” He put one hand up to his earpiece, then said, “OK, I’m onto it ……. The captain wants something heavier. I need to get to the van. I’ll cover you as far as the entrance.”

“Not a good time to be on your own,” said Stephen. “I’m staying with you.”

For a second the soldier looked like he was going to argue, then he sighed and said, “Keep behind me. I’d rather face these things any time than the captain in a bad mood, so I’d prefer you to stay alive, if you don’t mind, sir.”

“I’ll do my best to oblige,” muttered Stephen, wondering vaguely if the whole bloody lot of them knew about his liaison with Ryan. He supposed that after their captain’s remark in the bar, they probably all did.

Then they were running again. A second T. rex came lumbering towards them across the gravel. The small part of Stephen’s brain that wasn’t gibbering with fright registered the fact that the standard CGI versions were right in at least one respect, the tail was held out almost straight as it ran, in counter-balance to its body weight. And oh fuck, it was fast. Too fast. Way too fast. He dropped to one knee, bringing the rifle up to his shoulder and fired. Once. Twice. This time he didn’t fluff the re-load. The second bullet took it in the head as well. There was no time for another shot, but thankfully, his escort was on the case as well and another burst of fire brought this one down.

For fuck’s sake, how many of the things were there? Surely to God the rest of Ryan’s mob must have taken some of them out as well?

Stephen’s brain had given up trying to block out the noises around him. The harsh clatter of automatic fire merged with the roars of the creatures, threatening what was left of his sanity with total sensory over-load. And then somewhere not far away he heard the thin scream of a human in agony, abruptly cut off into a silence that was almost worse than the scream had been. But he carried on running. They were taking casualties now, that much was obvious and it looked like the others were still on the far side of the open area, separated from the hotel by at least four more of the buggers. This was beyond the realm of nightmares now.

Somehow they got to the side of the hotel. There were no lights round there, but they didn’t need lights to know that there was another T. rex between them and the van. It stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. A very large, very angry sore thumb, with very big teeth.

“Does staying still work?” asked the soldier, sounding improbably calm. “Or is that another fucking myth?”

“I’ll tell you when I know,” said Stephen.

But it wasn’t their presence which attracted the creatures attention first. There was a sudden flurry of movement close to ground level. Something small and furry shot out from the bushes next to them. The huge head swivelled, homing in on a long-haired white cat that had chosen this moment to make an ill-advised dash from cover. As a distraction, it couldn’t have been bettered. The tyrannosaur gave chase, like a ridiculous, but distinctly unfunny cartoon cat after an absurdly small mouse.

The soldier wasted no time. He was at the back of one of the vans in seconds, dragging the doors open and disappearing inside.

Stephen stayed on the corner, doing what Ryan had originally wanted and taking pot-shots at the brutes from a safe, or rather relatively safe, distance. He kept his aim high, not wanting to risk stray bullets hitting one of their own, going for head shots only.

He saw at least two on the far edge of the lawn topple and fall, cut down from both sides. He began to think they were starting to win. Or at least he hoped and prayed they were.

“Ever fired anything bigger than a rifle?” asked the soldier, still sounding like he was holding a polite conversation in a bar.

“No, but I’m a quick learner.”

And so, in the space of less than three minutes, Stephen was given a clear and remarkably concise lesson in how to fire a shoulder mounted rocket launcher. If truth be told, like most guns, it amounted to little more than point it and pull the trigger. That was something Stephen was pretty sure he could handle.

His escort dragged a box of shells out of the back of the van and over to the corner of the hotel. They were ready, all they needed now was a target. The beast that had chased the cat was still nosing around in the middle of the gravel, probably looking for another appetiser. The soldier went down on one knee, the long barrel resting on his right shoulder.

The tyrannosaurus lowered its head, snuffling, jaws open.

A small scrap of white fur huddled in front of it in the middle of the gravel. Its lack of movement the only thing saving its life.

A door banged loudly, startling and incongruous. Something started to run across the gravel crying, “Snowball!”

“Jesus H. Christ,” breathed the soldier, “who let a fucking kid out?”

Something about the high pitch of the young voice seemed to cut right through the rest of the tumult, attracting the interest of every beast left standing and three of them turned as one, heads tipping this way and that, trying to locate their prey by a mixture of hearing and smell.

The cat chose that moment to break and run and the child swerved after it, seemingly oblivious to the presence of what amounted to certain death on legs no more than three metres away. Before the beast could react, the crump of a rocket blasted through the night, leaving behind a trail of flame. The missile hit the T. rex in the shoulders and quite literally blew it apart, raining flesh and bone in all directions.

The child screamed again and froze. But at least it was no longer running towards the other three that had momentarily come to a halt, heads turning, seeking prey.

A soldier broke from cover on the far side, dodging one of the tyrannosaurs, firing from the hip as he ran. The muzzle flashes seemed to halt them almost as well as the bullets, but the effects were shorter lived. With a roar, the injured beast gave chase. It was slow to start, but soon made up for that.

Stephen’s first shot missed. The sodding thing was moving faster than he’d allowed for. He grabbed another rocket from the box and reloaded, hoping he was doing it right.

With a sudden lurch of his stomach, he realised the running figure was Ryan.

The cat chose that moment to take off again, this time heading back towards the hotel. One tyrannosaur turned after it, huge tail swinging widely. Ryan tried to swerve, but was caught across the chest and thrown through the air, straight into the path of another.

“Oh fuck,” breathed Stephen’s escort, taking careful aim, trying not to rush the shot, even though his captain was lying injured in the immediate path of an enraged dinosaur. Time slowed to a crawl.

It felt like one of those dreams where every move was made in slow motion through thick mud. Stephen watched, horrified, as one huge head lowered itself to Ryan, jaws impossibly wide, a noise somewhere between a growl and a roar issuing past teeth like carving knives. The Special Forces leader rolled, firing the machine pistol upwards, straight down his attacker’s throat. The head jerked back, blood sprayed and Ryan carried on rolling, narrowly avoiding a stamping foot that would have crushed the life from him as easily as the jaws could have done.

Ryan’s ribs hurt and he’d wrenched his knee badly in a desperate attempt to avoid a pair of wildly snapping jaws. He looked round, trying to locate the kid. She was huddled on the ground, the white cat cradled in her arms. Both too terrified to move. Ryan took his hands off the gun, leaving it dangling uselessly from its shoulder strap. He ran, ignoring the stabbing pain from his knee. Scooping the child up into his arms, he ducked under the head, the jaws missing him by inches. He didn’t even know if there was anyone in a position to provide covering fire, he just had to trust his men and what remained of his own luck, although even he knew this was pushing it beyond the bounds of all probability. He was fast, but it didn’t take a dinosaur geek to know that he didn’t stand a hope in hell of out-running these bastards.

As soon as he took off across the gravel, automatic fire burst out from behind him, but he knew its effectiveness was limited since they were restricted to firing over his head. He veered right, hoping to allow someone a clear shot. He was half way to the hotel now, but the crunch of over-sized feet on the gravel told him all he needed to know. He wasn’t going to make it.

A voice yelled, “Ryan, down!”

He threw himself forward and sideways, rolling to protect the child, shielding her with his body, in the hope that the jaws would close on him, not her. Pain from his twisted knee ripped through him, then a second later, the roar of a rocket launcher split the night and enough blood and guts to re-decorate an abattoir sprayed in a wide arc, hitting him in a nasty warm splatter.

Ryan looked up to see Hart crouched on one knee, a dazed smile of equal parts horror and relief on his face.

And then silence fell, thick and abrupt. The loudest noise Ryan could hear was the hammering of his own heart. Then the white cat gave a mew of protest, still clutched tightly in the arms of the child he was holding.

“Vermin cleared!” Lyle’s voice cut across the silence like a knife. “Finish anything still twitching then secure the building. Now!”

The main door opened and Jim Mitchell came running out, shotgun in hand. He saw his daughter still clutched in Ryan’s arms, threw down the gun and grabbed her, stroking her hair and kissing her again and again. The cat hissed in protest and jumped down, and then, as though nothing untoward had happened at all, it picked its way across various unmentionable lumps of flesh and bone, heading for the doorway. Once there, it sat down, stretched out one long hind-leg and started to groom itself.

Stephen dropped the rocket launcher and walked over to Ryan, his eyes fixed on his lover’s face, still trying to convince himself that he really was still alive.

Ryan rolled over onto his good knee and grasped the hand Stephen held down to him. “No, you can’t keep the fucking thing. Lester would have a fit. He made enough fuss about the permit for the Browning!”

“Spoilsport.” The blue eyes that held his were warm, and the grin was that of a man who had come within a hair’s breadth of death and had survived.

Ryan let Stephen pull him upright and for an all too brief moment, their lips met and a warm tongue probed his mouth. He drew back reluctantly, grey eyes staring into blue, one final soft kiss conveying more than words ever could but he said it anyway, just because he still could, “Thanks.”

Hart’s grin slid into a smile, lazy with relief, holding the promise of warmth and comfort. “Don’t mention it.” He was silent for a moment, but the question had to be asked. “How many did we lose?”

“One. And we found the girl’s body, or what was left of it.”

Stephen squeezed his hand, knowing nothing he could say would heal the hurt, then he stepped back. They still had work to do.


	3. Chapter 3

It took until dawn, but by then they were sure the immediate vicinity of the hotel was safe. They even found the Anomaly, just before it faded into tiny splintered fragments, leaving behind a legacy of pain, sharp and brittle. A third Special Forces team had reached them within an hour but the Home Office clean up crew took longer, but then they had needed to find some really big flatbed lorries, each equipped with crane lifts. Not an easy task in the middle of the night. And various civil servants had needed to be removed from warm comfortable beds. Probably harder than finding the crane lifts.

It would be a few hours before Cutter and the others made it here, but there would still be tyrannosaur corpses to move even then. And the consensus was that Lester was not going to like any of this one little bit.

With a pale, damp dawn showing over the tops of the trees, Stephen finally gave up and stumbled upstairs. He started shedding clothes even before the bedroom door had closed. The shower was warm, and very, very welcome even though the sight of the unpleasantly pinkish water running off him was an all too stark reminder that he had seen more blood tonight than he wanted to think about. Ever.

By the time Ryan came in, Stephen was sprawled in loose limbed exhaustion across the bed. Sleep was an obvious priority, but not covered in blood and dinosaur guts, even Ryan drew the line at that. His fingers fumbled numbly with the velcro fastenings of his tac vest. Eventually the jacket followed it onto the floor.

Stephen stirred and rolled over onto his side, hair still damp and spiky. “Need a hand?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Finger’s more nimble than Ryan’s started to unlace his boots, then the sweat soaked shirt was carefully peeled off his shoulders and cool, long-fingered hands tried to rub some of the tension from his neck. Eventually, he pushed himself upright, wincing as the twisted knee took his weight.

Trousers followed the rest of the clothes and for a moment, Stephen stood back and surveyed the damage. A massive bruise was already spreading across one side where the tyrannosaurs tail had sent the Special Forces leader flying. Ryan’s left knee was badly swollen, and another livid bruise covered his right upper arm. Blood had managed to find its way even through several layers of clothing and its metallic smell mingled sharply with the odour of sweat and cordite.

He stepped up close, one hand slipping round Ryan’s waist, the other running up through his sweat darkened hair.

“I thought we’d agreed it was only a one person shower?”

Stephen kissed him lightly on the lips. “It is. And you need one, followed by a beer and a fuck. In that order. Now get on with it before you fall asleep on your feet.”

Strong arms encircled him in reply. Ryan pulled the younger man close and kissed him with a fierce, almost desperate intensity before he limped across the dark bedroom, muttering, “There’s a couple of knee bandages somewhere in my pack and some tablets, see if you can find them.”

“Do you want me to fetch the medic?”

“No point. Take two tablets and stay away from monsters is all the advice he’ll give. Forget it.”

By the time Ryan came out of the shower, Stephen had opened a beers, poured a large whisky and set out painkillers and anti-inflammatories next to the glass. The captain grinned and downed several of each, plus the whisky, in two swallows. The beer followed almost as quickly. Stephen took the tops of two more bottles, while Ryan pulled bandages carefully over his damaged knee.

“Do those things mix with alcohol?”

“Special Forces issue,” grinned Ryan. “You want to see how much the medics mix with them.”

Stephen watched the other man, wondering exactly how much damage he’d actually taken. He’d be amazed if there weren’t cracked or even broken ribs under the mass of bruising spreading in a dark, mottled patch from chest to hip. Ryan was drinking left handed, clearly avoiding the use of his other arm, and he was standing with the weight thrown onto his right leg. Stephen wondered idly whether Special Forces got sick leave. And whether this lot would be enough to qualify for it or not.

“I’m due a week off,” said Ryan, correctly interpreting Stephen’s appraising glance. “I’ll probably take it when I’ve finished getting it in the neck from Lester about the cost of the clear-up operation. That’s if you lot can manage to stay out of trouble for a week.”

“Cutter will be busy taking one of the bodies apart. And Connor’ll be in his element. T. rex was always one of his favourites. They’ll have endless arguments trying to work out what the hell the sodding things were doing on this side of the Atlantic, and why they were hunting in packs. But they can do it without me. I’m off anything bigger than a gerbil for the foreseeable future, that’s for sure.”

Ryan sighed. It was going to be a long report, but it could wait. He’d had the shower, and the drink, several of them in fact. It was now time for the fuck.

The pain killers were starting to do their work. He could almost manage to move his right arm without wincing. He reached out and ran a hand lightly across Hart’s chest, brushing both nipples, then trailing lower to stroke and caress. If it hadn’t been for the fact that his leg simply wouldn’t bend enough, he’d have used his mouth instead, but he’d have to be horizontal for that.

Stephen found himself drawn into Ryan’s arms with surprising gentleness, bodies touching, pressing, sliding together with a comfortable familiarity. The kiss they shared lacked the earlier ferocity, but instead it was slow, deep and tasted pleasantly of beer.

The lips that Stephen had seen all too often set in a thin, implacable line could deliver a remarkably expert kiss. He relaxed in his lover’s arms, confining his movements to a slow, circular, teasing of his hips, whilst enjoying the probing of the insistent tongue.

There’d been several times over the last few hours when he didn’t think he’d succeed in following Ryan’s instruction to stay alive, and several other moments when he hadn’t expected the other man to survive either. Their afternoon activities seemed like a lifetime ago. A lifetime that hadn’t contained images of dismembered bodies, snapping jaws and carrion breath.

He shuddered, and for a moment, it wasn’t with pleasure.

“Bed,” said Ryan, quietly and firmly, in a voice that drove away demons and turned Stephen’s insides to molten gold.

Once there, Ryan’s kisses became harder, his body pressing down on Stephen’s, preventing movement in a way that was very, very nice. It was obvious that on this occasion, injured or not, Ryan was in charge and nothing was required in return beyond a warm, compliant body. And that was something Stephen was all too willing to provide. The slow, insidious creep of adrenaline fatigue had started to deaden his senses almost from the moment he’d squeezed the trigger on the rocket-launcher and watched the tyrannosaur be blown apart.

He was just happy to lie back and let Ryan do whatever he wanted while Stephen concentrated on enjoying the feel of hands, lips, teeth and tongue exploring what seemed to be every sensitive part of his body. He’d never realised until now how good it felt to be kissed behind the backs of his knees!

Thought surrendered gratefully to feeling, and sensation finally banished memory.

Then for a moment, to his frustration, he was alone on the bed, while Ryan limped over to his discarded tac vest and rummaged through the pockets. A soft curse told Stephen that the bottle of gun oil hadn’t survived its encounter with the tyrannosaurus’s tail.

“Any left?”

“Enough, maybe. If not, you’ll have to grit your teeth.”

A finger probed him gently, slick and delicious. Stephen’s heart rate jumped and he pushed backwards with his hips, wanting more. A second finger followed, drier and slightly more uncomfortable, but it still drove his pulse rate up even higher and ensured he didn’t care whether there was any bloody oil left or not. He didn’t mind how much it hurt. He wanted Ryan inside him, he wanted him now and he said so.

The other man laughed, low, intense and very controlled. Then, in a voice husky with sex, Ryan murmured in his ear, “I know I threatened to find your pain threshold, Hart, but it really will hurt if you’re dry. There’s probably something in the bathroom that would help.”

“No way. I’m not blowing bubbles from my arse for the rest of the day. You can forget that idea. Use what’s left of the oil and get on with it. I want it to hurt. Ryan, just fuck me, now,………… please!” He thrust his hips back again, brushing against Ryan’s cock as hard as he could.

“Not so fast, lover-boy. Be patient.” To his own surprise, Ryan was still in full control, probably helped by the occasional distracting stab of pain from his ribs. He was fairly certain that at least two were broken, but he had no intention of letting a minor inconvenience like that get in the way.

He reached up and captured both of Stephen’s wrists in one hand. With the other he continued a slow but thorough exploration of his lover’s body, pausing every now and again to probe deeply with his fingers. Moans turned to gasps. Ryan ignored the noises and started to kiss his way across Stephen’s shoulders and down his back, biting and licking. The younger man was writhing hard, but he didn’t stand a hope in hell of breaking Ryan’s grip, and that only made him writhe even more, enjoying the other man’s strength, testing himself against it and failing. And enjoying the failure, in spite of the bruises it would leave.

It was when Stephen started to make soft, desperate mewing noises in his throat that Ryan’s control finally wavered. He grabbed the bottle of gun oil and let the last few drops trickle out. He’d been right, it wasn’t enough, but they were both way beyond caring.

Stephen’s breath caught in his throat as Ryan entered him and he bit back a cry of pain. He wanted this, but dear god, it hurt. And he still wanted more. Ryan slid forward, starting to thrust. He couldn’t have stopped now even if he’d wanted to. Ignoring the pain from ribs and knee, he drove into Hart, conscious of nothing now beyond his own need for release. The slender body beneath him, cord-thin and muscular pushed back, equally hard and demanding.

The initial gasp of pain gave way quickly to those small, throaty cries. Ryan soon worked out what angles and which movements were the ones that drew out those noises, and others like them, and with ruthless efficiency, he began to exploit that knowledge.

And to his own surprise, for the first time in longer than he cared to remember, Ryan suddenly found he was more concerned with someone else’s pleasure than with his own. It wasn’t something he was used to. The aftermath of his marriage had left him largely devoid of feelings for others and his few liaisons since had been brief and to the point. And not what could be described as either caring or sharing.

This was different.

Ryan smiled into the darkness and gently kissed the sweat-soaked neck and shoulders, while continuing the slow, deep movement of his hips. Drawing out almost completely, then sliding in again, Hart’s body pliant and trusting, moving with him, and against him in all the right ways.

Abruptly, Ryan knew what he wanted above anything else. He withdrew and flipped Hart over onto his back, ignoring his protests, sliding down his lover’s body then using his mouth to good effect. Stephen’s protest turned to a sharp cry of pleasure as he discovered that Ryan’s mouth was as expert at other things as it was at kissing. He found his hips held in a grip of steel, heightening sensation by refusing even to let him squirm, while silk-smooth lips sucked and teased, sending waves of pleasure through a body that already felt like it couldn’t take any more without coming apart.

Dimly conscious of the fact that he could probably be heard throughout the hotel, but well beyond the point of caring, Stephen gave up any attempt to suppress his own cries, running his hands urgently through Ryan’s short hair, torn between never wanting this to end and desperately seeking release.

Then a hard, muscular body covered him, the demanding lips sought out his, tongues met again and hips pressed together, sliding, striving. Stephen gasped into Ryan’s mouth, blue eyes held in thrall by grey, then the two of them climaxed together, thrown into a place which held no pain, no hurt, nothing but a pleasure more intense than either could remember.

Then Stephen was quiet at last, cradled gently in his lover’s arms.

And Ryan knew with absolute certainty that he wanted to hear those soft kitten noises again.

Very, very soon.


End file.
